Archive for 'Cool Shops' Category

Prime Minister Abe promises to keep supporting “Cool Japan”policy

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe gave his governmental policy speech at the Plenary Session of the House of Representatives of the Diet on Feb.28. In that address he referred to the importance of  Japan’s remaining a tourism-oriented country.

 

Today  Thomas Yayi Boni, the president of  republic of  Benin in Africa was invited and observed the session. Yayi Boni currently serves as chairperson of Africa Union ,and  now, TICAD5 (Tokyo International Conference on African Development 5) is planned to be hosted in Yokohama Kanagawa Pref.  Jun.1-3.

Abe  declared in his remark that Japan Government will retain the tourism-oriented country policy and  said, “Japanese contents, fashion, and the strength of our culture and tradition has got much attention all over the world. Anime and other items’ booms should not end up  temporary fads, and let us enhance Cool Japan as our business that we can take pride in so that it should become something we can boast to the world with us promoting tourism-oriented country policy that attracts people in the world. “.

The 120th anniversary of pearl- cuturing technology

This year 2013, the pearl industry commemorates the 120th anniversary of  pearl-culturing technology. 

 

Koukichi Mikimoto, the founder of  MIKIMOTO (http://www.mikimoto.com/jp/) whose flagship store is located in Ginza Tokyo succeeded in culturing pearls as the first case in the world in 1893.  Since then Koukichi was called “The King of Pearl”.

On this 30th  MIKIMOTO released a special accessory with pearls and jewels called “MIKIMOTO Pearl Crown “DREAMS&PEARLS”- twelve pearls and dreams”.

the item can change its form between a “crown” and a” necklace” and  has a shape of  12 flower blossoms made of big natural pearls of 5 different types and 3400 diamonds.  The designers took more than 2 years to complete this breathtaking and splendid pearl treasure.

To tell the truth, I am a distant relative of koukichi Mikimoto and recently on 18th this month, I learned a basic concept of pearls  at a  lecture program for tour guides jointly hosted by JGA(Japan Guide Association), the oldest and biggest guide- interpreters organization, and  TASAKI, a major pearl and jewelry store company like MIKIMOTO.  (http://www.tasaki.co.jp/)

Therefore, I am so happy I learned ABC of the concept of pearls in this special year to pearl industry.

 

A dream come true! Atelier Pierrot and Cutie Honey collaboration!

What would happen if the strong and cute Cutie Honey wore Atelier Pierrot’s clothing?
Well, your dream has come true.

A lot of thought went towards the fabric, silhouette, and they have created sexy, cute pieces of:
Corset one piece
choker
gloves

If you don’t buy it now, you may not be able to get your hands on them later!

Cutie Honey collaboration corset one-piece 26,250 yen
Cutie Honey T-shirt (Black/White)                4,980yen

Atelier Pierrot -Osaka Tea Party Information

I would like to announce that on Feb.3rd(Sun), Atelier Pierrot Osaka is going to have a tea party!

Of course, we would like you to enjoy tea with the other members, staffs, games, photo shoots and enjoy the atmosphere different from your daily life!
We will have some awesome prizes waiting for you.

 

*Pierrot mini circus*
~Fashion show and tea party~

*When*
2013, Feb. 3rd (Sun) 13:00~16:00

*Where*
“Mini Fashion show”
13:00~13:45
Atelier Pierrot Osaka

“Tea Party”
14:00~16:00
A cafe in Shinsaibashi
(We will inform you the name of the cafe, only to those who are attending)

*What is it about*
“Fashion show”
A fashion show that is created by our staffs and model, which focuses on the new Atelier Pierrot garments.

“Tea Party”
We will provide the snacks and drinks.
You can also enjoy games, photo shoots and will be going home with a special  gift.

 

Enjoy!

*Dress code*
Please come wearing the brands that Atelier Pierrot provides.
( You can even show up with their accessories or something small. Doesn’t have to be a full outfit!)

Wearing Atelier Pierrot’s clothes is  not necessary, but please refrain from wearing jeans, sneakers, and other casual attires.

*Attention!*
A magazine interview will be held on this day.
There is a possibility that your picture might be taken.

Anybody under 12 years of age will not be allowed.

This will be a non-smoking environment.

Please understand that we may ask you to leave if you act or speak in a way that may cause problems to other people.

*How to attend*

We will start selling tickets from 2013 Jan 20 (Sun).
It will be first come first serve.
Up to 4 tickets per person.

Ladies: 3,150     Gentlemen: 3,675

*We will not sell tickets through the phone.
*We will not accept cancellation after the purchase of the tickets.
*We will send you the ticket the day after your purchase.

Even if this is your first tea part, please do not hesitate to join! Our staffs will support you and make sure you will be very satisfied!

“Manga Tottori Kingdom” – series of manga events

A series of manga related events are being held in Tottori Pref., which is the home area of  Shigeru Mizuki, one of the oldest working manga artist who is the creator of  Japanese monster manga works such as “Ge ge ge no Kitaro”.  http://manga-tottori.jp/?id=158

The series of  the Kingdom’s events will have been held  2012. April- 2013 March.

“TOKUSATSU-Special Effects Museum” of Hideaki Anno

Hideaki Anno(http://www.khara.co.jp/hideakianno/), a popular film director as well as an animator was  in charge of management of  a temporary art museum of “TOKUSATSU- Special Effects Museum”  wihich is a special exhibition at  Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo in Koto-ward Tokyo Jul.10-Oct.8.   (http://www.ntv.co.jp/tokusatsu/english.html)

The venue has displays of a lot of and various items, data, and movies. Diorama of houses ,towns and other scenes used in Sci-fi movies, models of spaceships, robots, masks and figure dolls and other items of monsters, super heroes etc… were all around there which attracted  visitors some of whom were adults , some of  whom were children. As you walk by you could learn a lot of details about famour or popular  sci-fi , fantasy, or action types of TV shows  ,movies animation as well as a long history and general flows of that industry’s  developments for decades.  In addition, audio recording  guilding service was available. i myself visted there and it was so intresting that it took more than three hours to finish it.

Anno has joined prohects such as “Nausica of Vally of winds”, “Gundam”,”Evangelion” and other worldwide popular anime and works.His great career directly reflected to the exhibited items. In addition, His newest work which Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki joined was released and shown for the first time to the visitors. It is a 10-minute long special effects movie called “Kyoshinnhei Tokyo ni arawaru”(/ Giant soldiers of artificial creatures showed up in Tokyo )  and the colossal robot soldiers destroy Tokyo which was a description of The seven Days of Fire depicted a bit in Nausica, an anime of Miyazaki 28 years ago.   I visited there and saw the movie and found them qute good and interesting.

Though the temporary museum was already closed, as the event was so popular that now Anno and his staf are considering  of  hosting the same event in many venues nationwide as a moving art museum, which may attract even more people from now on.

Tokyo Station renovated and re-open

Tokyo Station, located in Chiyoda-ward near the Imperial Palace and some of national governmental organizations offices, and one of  the symbols of Tokyo and Japan, re-opened  on this Oct,1st after a big renovating construction of a few years. http://www.jreast.co.jp/press/2012/20120403.pdf

    

The original building of the station was built in 1914 and parts of it were destroyed in the air-raids in WW2. The damaged parts were left untouched for several decades but finally they were repaired completely and the building has restored its original style and structure for the first time in 67 years this time.

The central part of the building had lost its dome- shape roof in the raid until it regained the shape upon the completion of the reparation. And some North and South dome parts have remodelled to have their original beautiful design and decorations inside, which a lot of people visit and take photos of every day since the reopening.

The huge underground  malls and streets have been much more widened so that they can receive even more visitors with better conveniences.

The central part now has a new facilty of  “Travel Service Center” (http://www.mapple.net/sp_spot/201210_1/cnt_05.html )  , a information center of travel related matters, tickets trades, luggage lockers, and so forth  being available in 4 languages of  Japanese, English, Chinese, and Korean. The walls are partially made of the originally- used very old bricks of the buildng.

 

Before the Grand Opening, there held a special eve festival of “Tokyo Station Vision”, a huge projection mapping show on Sep.22-23. The station building became a huge “screen”  on which artistic movies were played, most of which implied historical backgrounds of of the station.

In addition, the building includes a hotel named Tokyo Station Hotel in its central parts. http://www.thetokyostationhotel.jp/  The hotel was also renovated radically and  royal suite room which cost more than 800,000 yen just for one night is fully booked for more than several months since the reopening. the minimum charge for a basic guest room is about 30,000. The hotel remodelled its basement floors and restaurants arcade as well.

These restaurants, hotel rooms, mall stores and shops are quite popular which receive a lot of  customers everyday these days.

The construction project  cost  50 billion yen in total and such a huge budget was covered  by  clever idea of  selling  the “air rights” of the JR East, the owner of the building and the land  to surrounding buildings an their owners. Those other owners were able to  construct much higher buildings than they had originally planned in return.  All those drastically remodelled facilities in the Tokyo Station “complex” are expected to work as a quite useful and effective institutions to collect a lot of visitors and tourists. Actually, since the grand opening, so many people keep visiting  the restored new heart  of  tourism and commerce in the very central area of Tokyo and Japan.

“TGS 2012” marked its record high of the number of visitors

“Tokyo Game Show 2012″(TGS 2012) was held Sep.20-23 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba City.http://tgs.cesa.or.jp/index.html

This time the show marked its record high of the number of visitors with 223,753. This year the event was the 22nd and gradually it has received increasing number of visitors every time. Every time  new  video games are introduced or demonstrated at TGS and this time, new popular game soft wares such as,”Monster Hunter4″,   “Ark Sphere” and others. The number of the companies joining the event was also a record high with 209 and the number of the games was a record high with 1043. 

70% of the game titles introduced at TDS 2012 were so-called “social games”,which implies a game played by multi players through their mutual communications via such as smartphones or tablet computers.  There were also some stage performances of such as cos-play.  young female staff clad in colorful attires of video-game- world- like manner served the visitors.

“JIAM SHOW 2012” held in Osaka

“Japan International Apparel Machinery Show 2012” (JIAM SHOW 2012) was held Sep.19-22 at INTEX Osaka, an huge international exhibition site in Osaka. http://jiam2012.com/us/

 

More than 200 apparel companies joined and demonstrated their technologies or state-of-the-art apparel machines.  A lot of  registered visitors including foreign buyers saw them and some of them had business talks with the companies.  Actually, I was there with my foreign customers and they seemed  interested in the event and  cutting-age gadgets shown.

 

 

 

Atsuko Maeda’s graduation from AKB48

Atsuko Maeda, so-called “the steadfast center” ,or, “the absolute ace” of AKB48, graduated from that top female idol group of Japan at the moment on this Aug.27th.

Maeda was one of the original members of the group since its start on Dec.8th 2005, and  almost always performed at the central postition of singing and dancing formation on stage.   

On the very next day of the end of a series of live concerts at Tokyo Dome(http://www.tokyo-dome.co.jp/e/) Aug 24-26 so successfully, which about 144,000 people had visited in total, AKB48 hosted the “graduation memorial concert of Atsuko Maeda” at AKB 48 Theater in Akihabara on 27th. The former was a glorious realization of  AKB’s dream-come-true since its foundation. And there had been a plan of Maeda entering the Theater for the concert after showing herself from a car in a parade on nearby roads of the area in Akihabara, which unfortunately aborted due to an instrcution of the police  for security’s reason.

On that day there was  a crazy situation of  so many passers-by and fans in Akihabara area. 

A lot of  posters of Maeda was put on various places in Akihabara station, special books, photo collections, items said to be available only on that day were sold at boolstores, AKB48 Cafe &Shop and other stores there.  The available number of  the tickets of  the graduation concert was just 250, and  more than 230,000 people applied for , so, the winning rate was  about one out of  916  !    Agter the concert, Maeda showed up on a balcony of the building and waved good- by and sent her final salute as a AKB member to the people there.

Coincidentally, I was in Akihabara on that very day, and bought a Maeda’s memorial photo collection for graduation at a special stall of  a bookstore in the station building. I felt  sepecial atmosphere of excitement in the town.

In addition,  three days later , to my huge surprise, I  just happened to witness two AKB48 members,namely Mina Ohba and Suzuran Yamauchi in Shibuya near the station while walking down there. Actually they didn’t stand out so much in the huge crowd there, but  accidentally my shoulder and Yamauchi’s shoulder touched in the busy crowd, when we passed each other. In that place Maeda’s big billboards were on the walls of nearby buildings, and ad-buses of the newest AKB’s song “Gingham Check” were driving around and their music was heard everywhere…  That was a quite strange and impressive situation ,and I have found Shibuya is also  an “turf”(?) of  AKB48 groups or popular idols in general.

 

“The 14th Japan International Seafood & Technology Expo”

I wrote about a food exhibition I visited with my customers the other day on my previous post here. Here I introduce another food exhibition to which I took my customers recently. That is “The 14th Japan International Seafood & Technology Expo” (http://www.exhibitiontech.com/seafood/e_tokyo_index.html), hosted by Japan Fisheries Association (http://www.suisankai.or.jp/index_e.html) at a huge venue in Tokyo Bigsight in Tokyo on Jul.18-20.

 

I visited the event with my customers who were food buyers on the 19th and found so many other visitors, stores, companies and their foods there. We also tried various food ,such as sashimi(raw fish), sushi, and others ,all of which were quite good. The companies are not only from Japan but from a lot of  foreign countries as well,so I was able to enjoy foreign dishes using various seafood.

Totally, more than 400 stores or companies joined and ran their booths where some of them demonstrated cooking or other events having their visitors try their items. And totally, 26,101 people visited the expo during the three days.

Like the other event I wrote previously, this event had mascot characters of stuffed-animal costumes as well.

 

What  amazed me most in the expo was an “automatic sushi maker”, which I saw for the first time and the shushi made with that machine were all delicious to my satisfaction.

This event was supported by a lot of  companies based in Tohoku Region as well and one of its purports was to assist Tohoku suffering from the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami disaster last year. The facilitators intend to reinvigorate Japanese fishery business including those in Tohoku  so that that industry can work powerfully to make our country energetic and richer and people can be happier overcoming the damages and sufferings.

My customers and a lot of others had business negotiations with the sellers in a very vigorous atmosphere and manners. I am so happy the tour I took care of was successuful and fruitful.  

 

The Fascination of Foods Discovery Project 2012

A food exhibition, “The Fascination of Foods Discovery 2012 ” was hosted by an association of local banks at TRC(Tokyo Ryutsu Center) in Tokyo on Jul.17-18. http://food-hakken.com/english.pdf

 

More than 100 stores or companies joined and showcased their items, have their visitors try foods, and host business negotiations with buyers who visited there. I took my customers who were buyers and showed them around in the event as a tour guide.

There walking a mascot of an stuffed-animal costume, my customers seemed so interested in the items and enjoyed the foods and services or negotiations. I tried fish,meat,wine ,and so forth, all of which were delicious. The atmospehere of the venue was very lively and fun with a lot of visitors and staffers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Animate liner bus services “Ani-ten Special Express 2012”

Animate, one of the biggest store chains of anime and manga related items, will temporarily provide special services of  liner buses between its stores and the venue of  Comic Market, the big manga event. This service is called “Ani-ten Tokkyuu 2012″(/アニ店特急2012, anime store special express ).    http://www.animate.tv/news/details.php?id=1341304868

The service started in 2007 and has been provided periodically since then. The tickets were available through a lottery for those who buy specific items. And passengers will receive special presents, services such as  radio broadcasting on the bus related to some works.

The routes and schedules are as followes;

Shinjuku line, Ikebukuro line : Aug.10-12 , Shibuya line:Aug.11-12

 

 

 

 

a “GUNDAM guest room” at Hotel Grand Pacific LE DAIBA

A new luxurious guest room featuring Gundam’s world  came into service on this June 29th at Hotel Grand Pacific LE DAIBA in Tokyo (http://www.grandpacific.jp/eng/). Gundam is a worldwide popular sci-fi big robot anime  works series. This hotel service plan is the first case of collaboration of that anime work and an accommodation business.

The rooms are “PROJECT ROOM-G Special type” of 84㎡ consisting of a bed room and a living room and “PROJECT ROON-G Standard type” of 42㎡ of one room. The rooms are furnished with  wall paper, carpets, beds and other parts and furniture having special Gundam-related designs or items.

The room fees are as follows;  the Special type・・・52,000 yen or higher for two people, the Standard type・・・27,000 yen or higher for two people.  The max population of  a room is three and  currently the hotel has one Special type and two Standard type rooms but as they are extremely popular and reserving them is quite difficult, the management resolved to prepare  six more Standard type ones soon. The room guests are provided with special gifts of  card room keys of Gundam design and other related 20 sorts of goods. In addition, the room charge includes the fee of  admission tickets to Gundam Front Tokyo in Diver City where huge Gundam model stands at the moment. A guest can order special Gundam-related dishes on the special menu.

 

 

Tokyo Sky Tree Grand Open today !

Tokyo Sky Tree , the newest popular tourists’ destination of Japan at the moment finally hosted its Grand Opening  and started its operation today May 22nd 2012.http://www.tokyo-skytree.jp/en/

 

Lucky 9,000 winners of the admission tickets of the obsevatories and other visitors visited the highestand newest tower in Japan.  Only one out of 335 applicants won the ticket to the First Obsevatory(350m high) for the entry there in daytime of the 22nd.

All the tickets to the First Observatory(/天望デッキ, Tenbou Deck) up to those for  Jul.10th can be purchased by advance reservation only.  The reserved tickets prices are;  Adult: 2,500 yen, Junior or Senior high school student: 2,000 yen, Elementary pupil: 1,400 yen, and  Infant: 1,100. From the Jul.11th and on, current- day tickets will be available and the prices will be;  Adult:2,000 yen,  Junior or Senior Student: 1,500 yen, Elementary Pupil:900 yen, and Infant: 600 yen. (1$≒80 yen, 1€≒102 yen)  In order to go up to the Second Obsevatory(/天望回廊, Tenbou Kairou) , surcharges are necessary (Adult:1,000 yen, Junior or Senior Student:800 yen, Elementary Pupil:500 yen, and Infant:300 yen).

It was, unfortunately, raining today 22nd, and as  strong winds began to blow in the evening, the elevator between the two observatories suspended its operation temporarily at around 17:30 and the Second Obsevatory closed at 19:30, which had orginally been planned to keep open until 22:00. Still, the illumination service started at 7:00 as originally planned.

The Tokyo Sky Tree started its history with huge enthusiasm and popularity supporeted by  people, and is expected to function as a new symbol of Japan.